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“Although moves to outlaw blown diffusers have already resulted in teams being forced to run with periscope exhausts in 2012, there have been mounting concerns that some outfits are still trying to exploit loopholes in this area of the regulations.”

“What are Mercedes doing with this wing? It seems the potential for the wing could be either to increase downforce, cut drag or alter a handling imbalance. This latter use might be to overcome problems with the 2011 chassis and the driving styles of the teams two drivers.”

“Johnnie Walker today provided Djordje Simic from Serbia with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, when he took the wheel of the 2008 Championship-winning Vodafone McLaren Mercedes F1 car at Silverstone, after winning the Johnnie Walker ‘Drive of a Lifetime’ competition.”

Comment of the day

Not a lot of people were impressed by Red Bull’s zeal for getting Mark Webber second in the drivers’ championship:

There?óÔé¼Ôäós no way that this works out well for Webber. If he starts doing better, it could imply that the team actually weren?óÔé¼Ôäót fully behind him this season, and if he doesn?óÔé¼Ôäót improve then it?óÔé¼Ôäós a case of even with the team?óÔé¼Ôäós support, he can?óÔé¼Ôäót get the job done.

Bad news about Robert, bad news for Renault. Even if he can get back to driving some time in 2012, he will now miss car development, which leaves the team with the “far from best” choice of Petrov and Senna for that.

Keith, I’m not sure if you have been notified of this; the V8 Supercars have unveiled a trophy in memory of Dan Wheldon awarded to the best performing international driver in the event he was going to compete in this weekend.

Well, Korea isn’t happy with their race, and given that they pretty much locked the circuit up the day after the 2010 race and didn’t re-open it until the day before this year’s event with none of the proposed development in between, Bernie could probably drop them without much fuss.

Also (and I meant to include this in the previous post), employing Populous will not automatically make the circuit “better”. Populous would still be bound by the same rules and regulations that Hermann Tilke has to play by. And that’s before you even consider the way the race in New Jeresy would be a street circuit, and therefore there would be even more limitations imposed on them, because they would only be able to use existing roads. There is already a proposal floating around (though no indication as to who penned it.

Hermann Tilke is not the problem. The rules on circuit design are. Everyone attacks Tilke because he designs the actual circuits, but only a handful of people bother to ask why his circuits are so reviled. It’s not a lack of imagination, or a love of boring racing that drives him to design circuits the way he does. It’s the rule book that is the problem.

Seriously, are you Tilke’s agent or something PM? Most fans dislike Tilke’s circuits and many of the same think Populous did a good job at Silverstone. No wonder they want Populous to have a crack at a full-blown circuit to see if they can do better.

As I keep saying, the regulations concerning safety, run-offs, lap length etc. do NOT constrain him to make virtually the same corners and corner/straight combinations over and over and over again.

take a look at the proposal for the aborted circuit at Flins-Les-Mureaux. It does have that squiggly bit (although I don’t know of any elevation changes) and one of the corners looks like it has tightening radius – although that would be more of a consequence of lining up properly for the next corner, rather than for the sake of it – but apart from that it would have been a nice, flowing circuit with plenty of traditional corners to make up for a few Tilke copies. Probably not the best for overtaking – Turn 1 would probably space the cars out anbd I don’t know how fast the one preceding the long straight would have been – but at least it would be nice and different.

Seriously, are you Tilkeâ€™s agent or something PM? Most fans dislike Tilkeâ€™s circuits and many of the same think Populous did a good job at Silverstone. No wonder they want Populous to have a crack at a full-blown circuit to see if they can do better.

I’m not saying that Tilke is the be-all and end-all when it comes to circuit design, @Icthyes – only that removing him would be treating a symptom rather than the underlying disease. If Populous got the job, they would be bound by the same rules as Tilke is. But if the rules governing circuit design were changed, then both Tilke and Populous (or whoever else got the job) would have much more design freedom, allowing for much better circuits. I, for one, have no objections to letting somebody else have a go at circuit design – but I don’t want to see their potential wasted because they are bound by the same rules as Hermann Tilke.

Even if Tilke is not the main reason many of the new circuits are bad, how are we going to know for sure if he keeps getting awarded all the design work for new circuits?

It’s the problem in any field with a single supplier — sure they might be doing an OK job, but what’s the yardstick for comparison? And how do you know if they’re overcharging or not, if there are no competing designs?

Open tenders for new F1 circuits / renovations, I say. If Bernie doesn’t like that, it’s time to get rid of that man — haven’t we had enough of his family’s obscene parading of dirty money?

United States Grand Prix East is certainly an idea, but I can think of a few possibilities:

– New York Grand Prix or Manhattan Grand Prix, though these would be controversial since the race won’t actually be in New York or on Manhattan.

– Atlantic Grand Prix, kind of like the old Pacific Grand Prix (which would pave the way for the Pacific race to be revived).

– United States Grand Prix, with Austin becoming the Grand Prix of Texas.

– New Jersey Grand Prix, but that lacks the glamour of a few other possible names.

– Lenapehoking Grand Prix, named for the Lenape Nation (the Native American people who lived in New Your and New Jersey); Algonquin Grand Prix is another possibility, though names based on Native American land recognition might be controversial (recognition of traditional aboriginal ownership of land is a big thing here in Australia; I don’t really know how recognition of Native American land is done in the United States).

“Atlantic” probably fits best. I don’t think many Jersey-ites would like being referred to as New York, and nor do I think many New Yorkers would like New Jersey being described as New York or Manhattan (even if the circuit is partially located in West New York, New Jersey). And I think the Hudson is too small a land feature to be the title of a Grand Prix. So “Atlantic Grand Prix” would be best, with the European Grand Prix possibly being renamed the “Mediterranean Grand Prix”.

Apparently, Force India have signed Nico Hulkenberg to a one year race deal for 2012 with an option for 2013, replacing Adrian Sutil as Paul di Resta. If the car is good, this may take Force India to new heights. I cannot wait for a team made up of two of the most promising rookies from the past two years, Hulkenberg and Di Resta!

A shame really if this story is true – Sutil gets the job done IMO, and he and di Resta are a good/solid partnership.

The second best pairing after Button and Hamilton in F1 for me. My prediction then is less total points for FI in 2012 with plenty of temper tantrums from Hulkenberg and one very odd 4th-6th place finish.

And I’ll have to come up with a new Name and a new favorite driver! What to do? No more cheering for the weird, Campy doesn’t know who Keira Knightley is Sutil.

Just have a feeling that replacing Sutil is a bad move by Force India. He has been with the team for ages, and has done a pretty solid job. At the beginning of this year, he wasn’t too impressive, but he has found his stride recently, and has been doing a better job than Di Resta recently.

Hulkenberg is a bit of a wild card, I do not know how much we should be reading into his practice session timings.

He might voluntarily move over for Webber, as Hakkinen, Mansell etc. have done in the past – although that would be a long shot, and I think he’d only do that at the last race if Webber needed the points.

““That is part of the fun of the development side. I don’t think there have been any regulations that don’t have them. Our job as F1 designers and aerodynamicists is to seek out potential areas where the regulations are potentially vague and exploit them.””

This is why the unveiling of the new designs next year will be outrageous levels of fun :D